well thank god i visited your page!
oooo../claps hands
what a delight to read your response!

i agree with almost everything you expressed.
oh thank you my friend!

economics has never been my strong suit.i know..shocker.
but i AM quite literate in history and government and of course politics.
while you are correct that a socialist state can become a fascist one,so too can a democracy.
it is really the forces of ideology which can push a state to either a fascist or swing despotic.
but i get your point.

i do apologize for my oftentimes rambling.maybe because i am a little out of my comfort zone when it comes to economics,so i rely on my history and governmental knowledge to fill in the gaps.
your last post really cleared so many misconceptions i was having during this conversation.

i knew we were more in agreement than disagreement.
and we are.

1.the banks need to held accountable.
check.
2,which by inference means the governments role should be as fraud detector and protector of the consumer.
check.
3,you didnt mention it but i hope you agree the corporate charter needs to be rewritten in a way where they are NOT a person and therefore shall be removed from the political landscape.
check.
4.this will (or should) re-balance our political system (which is diseased at the moment).
5.which will return this country to a more level playing field and equate to=more liberty.
6.this will open innovation,progress and advancements in ALL fields AND due to competitive forces ,will lower prices.

how am i doing so far?

now.
since we have to talk about politics when we talk about markets.
my old professor dr paul (great man,miss him very much).
he reduced politics down to one simple question:
"what should we do"?
or in terms that we have been discussing:
"what is governments role"?

thats it.
now people like to make it more complicated,especially people getting paid good money to postulate on sunday morning tv shows,but thats it.

being an anarchist is not one dimensional.
the anarchism YOU are speaking of is the extreme.
i am more the libertarian socialism flavor.(yes..you didnt convert me)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
the anarchist may see a form of government that no longer works.that is weighed down by its own hubris,greed and corruption.
the anarchist finds it perfectly acceptable to tear down that government to build a new one.

and why not?
if something aint working the way it was meant to,get rid of it and try another.

now you wanted to know why i feared and unrestricted free market.
(which is how i was talking your previous post and confused me greatly).i see now i may have misinterpreted your commentary so my next point may be a moot one.
if so..i apologize.

if we put everything on the table as an unrestricted free market.we would be going back to feudalism.
the flaw in capitalism is not just the boom and bust but the exploitation of the common man,or worker if you like.

not only would the most vulnerable of us be exploited but it would make the class structure even WORSE than it is now (which by comparison is not too bad when compared to,say..somolia).

we see pockets of this happening now here in the US:
http://youtu.be/GVz_yJAxVd4

imagine having to pay for any road you drove on.ALL of them.all owned by different companies and subsidiaries.every one of them a toll road.
the market would dictate what burden could be held sufficiently in order to turn a profit.
what percentage would be prevented from driving those roads due to lack of funds?

see what im saying?

lets take this template and put it with firefighters.
would having a firehouse every couple of miles be profitable?
i mean,how many fires are there actually occurring on any given day?
so the firehouse would have 2 choices that i see.
shut down the more rural and spread the firehouses more thinly OR charge a monthly fee.
since a nominal fee would be the most likely avenue,what about those people who cant afford that fee?
does the firehouse BILL them?
"sorry for the loss of your house ..pay us".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwJrPa8Ps7A

and what about police?
they already have become revenue generators and protectors of the privileged.
what happens to poor folks in an unrestricted market?
police wont have a station in any inner city areas.no profit there.
no no no..wait a minute!
there would be HUUUGE profit there!
/smacks head
what was i thinking!
of course!
just like our prison system the police would be paid by the state PER arrest.
to be reimbursed on a quarterly basis!
BRILLIANT.
then poor people could be commodities!

nope nope nope.not gonna work.
that would mean the state would have to impose a tax or something to generate the revenue to pay for the arrested subjects.

hahaha im being an asshole now.forgive me.

ok.lets talk schooling.
lets privatize em!
free market baby!
based on the local population and average income we can fill those seats.
aaaand maybe get rid of NCLB and standardized testing,which i loving refer to as the giant ball of bullshit.
now this would be GREAT.

wait a minute.
what about the poor families that cant afford the tuition?
what do they do?

well in an unrestricted market and pesky government out of the way what do YOU think is going to happen to a system driven by self interest and profit?

welcome back child labor!!
and the 80 hour work week!
and beatings for not making quota!
and how awesome is it that that poor family of 5 gets to live with grandma,grandpa,uncle lou and aunt sara and there 3 kids all in one 3 bedroom house.
its 1913 all over again.
happy days are here again.......

ok ok.dont get mad at me.that was mostly tongue in cheek.
i realize after your post tonight that you are not suggesting an "unrestricted" free market but a free market.

and i am ok with that.
if we can limit government intrusion.
allow companies to tank when they fail.
rewrite the corporate charter (or dissolve them completely,or as i suggested previously make them accountable and put back the phrase "for the public good").
reign in bank fraud and make the rules to keep em honest.

in my opinion the only thing we really seem to disagree on is when it is in regards to labor.

i tried a few years ago to buy my friends bar/eatery with most of the employees.
did you know what i found out?
we were not allowed.
could not get the permits.
the owner even offered to finance us all..
nope.
how about them apples.illegal to have an employee owned business.

that is changing though.
employee owned businesses and co-opts are popping up like recurring herpes.

i dont know why it was illegal in this area and i dont see how employee owned companies would threaten a free market.

but as you figured out.
economics is not my strong suit.

and my man,cant tell ya how grateful i am to have had this conversation with you.i learned tons,about you and your views and even some about free markets.

thank you my friend.thank you.
namaste.

I'll start by apologizing for the long reply...
I looked as closely as possible in HD fullscreen and on my computer the head never touched ground. More to the point, the child never reached for his head. Either way the point is moot, the mother never once even glances at the child to determine injury.
I did look closely, down to street view, at the whole park, and what I saw was it seems that in the non-skate areas there is a different texture to the ground (around the pool, playground area, etc.)
From my viewpoint (and I admit I could not read the park rules, I tried from every angle) the rest of the park is built specifically for skating, and has obstacles designed to skate on that have clear marks on them that that's what they are used for. The area you think is the only skate area has ramps in and out to skate on, so perhaps I'm wrong, but the implication of that design is you can skate everywhere. If I'm wrong in that guess, I'm wrong. There's no way to tell for certain from what I can see. That said, I draw the line at the areas designated for skating, and not in the areas designated for other things. As I've repeatedly stated, the skater bears some responsibility for not looking in a public place, but mom bears far more for allowing child to run free in a public skate park, especially when he was headed straight towards the street with no one watching until he screams.
I do admit from what I see this park is not well designed, as there is not a clear separation of the skate area and non-skate area, or a path from one non-skate area to another. If all the areas besides the small rail/bowl area are not for skating, they certainly should not have built it filled with skating obstacles and ramps, knowing that skaters will skate them.
I guess I misunderstood, yes, he was skating towards the picnic tables, but was no where near them at the end of his run, so who's to say he didn't plan on turning left into the rail area or stopping after the kick flip? The child was headed for the street, agreed?
Barrels out from behind an object is what children often do, and why they get hit, they don't know to look first.
Kid's mom is not seen until after the incident, then walking from the pavilion, she was not with or watching her child from every thing I see.
My reaction to blame the mom is because she was not watching her child and went off because that inattentiveness led to an accident, and she was the one responsible for her child's safety, no one else.

second post reply starts here:
OK, that's clearer that you don't excuse her actions. I accept and agree with that.
Expect the parent to be upset, absolutely. Expect them to be aggressive, not really but many people go that way. Expect them to be violent to address their own parental failings, not at all. Expect them to understand they (not the skater) is 70%+ at fault for not supervising a toddler? Never, parents rarely accept their failings and almost always deflect responsibility.
I feel you miss-state the situation. I say he should have hit her to stop her advance, not if she stopped, at the end of the video, she's still attacking. That's self defense, and using the skateboard in that capacity seems fine to me. We may disagree, people are different.
I think you hit the nail on the head in your last paragraph...we just don't see it the same way. I feel like many parents have a natural defense mechanism of responsibility deflection, and I don't accept any responsibility for other's children, and would never expect them to take it for mine. I understand the mindset of parents that believe we all have a responsibility to take care of their children, I just disagree with it.
I also disagree that age is an excuse, if the child is too young to watch out for itself, it's 100% the parent's responsibility in my eyes, not mine.

And then there's the new idea that this discussion is all about a faked video. If true, the parent is still irresponsible for letting their child be run into on concrete where he may well have broken his skull, but maybe not completely out of control crazy violent.
Again, apologies for the long post.

Dunno mate, if they haven't learned by now it's moot'n the shout-out from mums' a fair wrinkle their household's day....From the looks of kid's room decor'n mum's top, that flats fulla slobs.

your point is moot. please walk into on coming traffic.

I've always envisioned this as an infinite collection of deterministic model universes, like a series of differential equations that are just slightly different from the last.

So you don't have a choice as you think you do (human-centric), because the nature of our universe(s) is cause and reaction, not bound to human or sentient thought-controlled being; so the differential equations that create our universe as a topographical model, play out literally every possible cause and reaction starting and/or ending position.

You have a computer and you know math. So think upon the structure of computers and math. How does it work? What is the human body? A magical lamp that creates "special" realities, or a complex organism made up of other complex organisms that ultimately creates our experience as sentient beings?

You're going to need a process that disambiguates your brain's natural inclination to think of human experience as the ultimate experience. The existence of the smallest building blocks of our universe supersedes us, so why do your multidimensional models assume that human thought controls the multi-pathed nature of all? The model may even be such that all existences happen simultaneously and that choice is moot. (determinstic)

TLDR: Time is an illusion. My belief is that ALL possible realities have happened and are happening... for lack of a better word, NOW. Big Bang happened. Maybe all big bangs happened simultaneously. Does big bang only assume the observable universe? Think about that while you're high.

I wouldn't say a tech demo has to center individual effects necessarily (as in enumerating and highlighting them) necessarily, but it does have to run in real time on *something*. I'll accept a little give-tand-take there (like it was rendered at half-real time and sped up for the video or something). Otherwise, it may as well just be raytracing. It's obviously all hand-animated too anyways, so whether or not its rendered real time is almost moot.

That said, apart from some questionable art direction, it does look pretty cool. I look forward to the time, 8 or 10 years from now, when cut-scenes rendered in real time look like this.

Fancy rendering effects are great and all, but we need more physics stuff if we're going to advance gameplay. Not just solid-body, stuff tessellating with the bits bouncing around, but actual modeling of of environments taking into account the physics of how stuff works. Entire levels built of structures that obey the laws of physics made of materials with realistic properties. Wires carrying current, pipes with flowing water, load bearing beams and framing, fuel tanks with flammable liquids and gasses... that sort of thing,

I want to play a game where my imagination is the limit. Apologies for the rambling. Had a couple glasses of wine. Anyways, you know what I mean,

So many Debbie Downers. Must be a new hipster thing to rip on new Star Trek, kinda like every SNL vid/thread has some boorish dolt who has to tell everyone that they haven't watched SNL for years because it hasn't been funny since the 70s.

Well... I've been a fan of all the Star Trek series (including "Enterprise") and movies since TOS, and this looks awesome. I used to record the audio of TOS on my Realistic cassette recorder when I was 6-7 years old, and I can still irritate the hell out of anybody in the room by speaking the lines of an entire episode before the actors do. LOVE Star Trek. The first movie established that the timeline is different now. Storywise, prior Star Trek canon is largely moot. Get over it.

You don't want to go see it? Don't. Easy peasy. Anyhoo, you probably all meant to click on this vid.

He doesn't recognize the state of Israel, so the point of arguing the state of Israel is completely moot for him, THAT is the reason. He's not anti-semitic in the sense that he hates jews, he just doesn't recognize the state of Israel, no? That is not the same thing. It definately isn't interchangeable with any other nationality, as his problem is specifically with Israel.
This is much like how the Israeli government for the longest time refused to talk to the Palestinian leadership because it didn't recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.
Let him discuss something else, ANYTHING else, with an Israeli person and you can be sure he'd be up for it.

He walked out from that debate because he got ambushed by the event organisers, who knew full well that he would not agree to any debate involving Israel and Israelis debating Israel, but decided to deceive him into participating by misleading him into believing the event was about something it was not. Had they been straightforward about this then he'd declined the invitation and the end result would be the same, he would not have participated. Instead, they orchestrated this whole debacle with the sole intent of gaining some publicity, and perhaps to cast him in bad light while they're at it. There was no other outcome from this, they knew he wouldn't participate and invited him anyway, making sure there would be cameras there to capture everything on film. That is shameful.

I've been called worse than capitalist. I do have choice, and that's where I'm privileged. Many people don't though. There are still many areas where Unions monopolize the work force such that people have no choice but to join, if they want to work in a particular manufacturing sector, or similar. I think it's pretty much a moot point anyhow. Half the States have right to work laws and others will follow. The root causes of lack of competitiveness of US manufacturing globally; escalating costs of healthcare, liability, regulatory compliance, etc. aren't being addressed. With fixed labor costs in the US, companies have 2 choices, lower labor costs (common) or raise consumer prices (uncommon). It's a conundrum, Unions or no Unions. The anti-competitive nature of Unions will make them less relevant. The model doesn't work as well when workers have a choice whether they join or not.

Moot point really when you consider the creative means the "rich" have to hide the BULK of their liquid assets-Mooter than moot. Mootest.

So no. They don't pay some imaginary percentage and they ARE fucking the planet, and they are fucking laughing out loud while they are not paying the bulk of taxes.

IF Romney is elected? What happened to ROMNEY LANDSLIDE?

I think you may be a RINO in disguise.>> ^quantumushroom:

The question about FEMA is moot.
Little to nothing ever gets cut in these federal bureaucracies, any cuts are more like a single theatrical scratch. It doesn't matter which side is in charge.
The federal mafia grows every goddamned year whether it needs to or not. It's mandated.
We can argue all night about FEMA, which is just the Post Office with a life preserver, Band-Aid and bottle of water, it won't make a whit of difference.
Here's some other ways your tax dollars are being spent:
$2.6 Million Spent To Train Chinese Prostitutes To Drink Responsibly
$1,529,220 for an Appalachian Fruit Lab.
$742,764 for olive fruit fly research. ($211,509 of this amount was to be spent in Paris, France)
$172,782 for the National Wild Turkey Federation in Edgefield, S.C.
$1,128,000 for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Alaska Eagle River for an at-risk youth mentoring program.
$50,000,000 for REAL ID grants. Got to be sure to track and trace those unruly American citizens!
$123,050 for a Mother's Day Shrine in Grafton, West Virginia (population 5,489, with a land area of 3.8 square miles)

Revolution is coming, now it's only a question of when...less than 10 years if Romney is elected, less than 4 if the other guy squeaks in.

The question about FEMA is moot.

Little to nothing ever gets cut in these federal bureaucracies, any cuts are more like a single theatrical scratch. It doesn't matter which side is in charge.

The federal mafia grows every goddamned year whether it needs to or not. It's mandated.

We can argue all night about FEMA, which is just the Post Office with a life preserver, Band-Aid and bottle of water, it won't make a whit of difference.

Here's some other ways your tax dollars are being spent:

*$2.6 Million Spent To Train Chinese Prostitutes To Drink Responsibly

*$1,529,220 for an Appalachian Fruit Lab.

*$742,764 for olive fruit fly research. ($211,509 of this amount was to be spent in Paris, France)

*$172,782 for the National Wild Turkey Federation in Edgefield, S.C.

*$1,128,000 for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Alaska Eagle River for an at-risk youth mentoring program.

*$50,000,000 for REAL ID grants. Got to be sure to track and trace those unruly American citizens!

*$123,050 for a Mother's Day Shrine in Grafton, West Virginia (population 5,489, with a land area of 3.8 square miles)



Revolution is coming, now it's only a question of when...less than 10 years if Romney is elected, less than 4 if the other guy squeaks in.

I saw the discussion of Oswald, but I don't think that's what the increasingly fuzzy memory was about. In large part because Oswald -was- created by one of Disney's employees. I suppose it's possible that I completely inverted the issue over the course of a few years, but I hope not. Call it ego if you will, but I like to believe I keep at least the general idea correct.
>> ^Sagemind:

You may be thinking of "Oswald the Rabbit"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_the_Lucky_Rabbit
Mickey Mouse was created early in 1928 on a train ride from New York to Los Angeles as Walt was returning with his wife from a business meeting at which he lost the copyright of his cartoon, Oswald the Rabbit. Walt spent the train ride thinking up a little mouse in red velvet pants and named him “Mortimer,” but by the time the ride was over, had changed his name to “Mickey.”
Oswald was also a knockoff of many cartoon characters of the time, most notably Felix the Cat.
An intersting discussion on the subject.:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/did-walt-steal-the-idea-of-micke
y.78437/
>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^Sarzy:
>> ^Stormsinger:
Disney's biggest selling features, like Mickey Mouse and the Lion King, were clearly stolen from other artist's work.

You're definitely right about The Lion King, but what was Mickey Mouse stolen from? The only character I can think of is Oswald, but that was a Disney creation as well.
(and I think Star Wars should be just fine at Disney -- it's hard to argue that they've done anything but a bang-up job with Marvel's cinematic output, and presumably they'll put the same thought and care into future Star Wars films)

You may be right...there was a toy that some claim Mortimer/Mickey was copied from, but that's not what I was remembering. Sadly, I cannot find any reference to what I thought I remembered, so I'll have to drop Mickey as an example.
However, few of Disney's big films were original stories, he had a penchant for taking public domain IP and using it (The Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Anderson for example)...then, as we all know, buying politicians to make sure that his own copyrights would never expire. Still a form of theft, but not quite as severe.
Bottom line, it's not a company I care to patronize...but Star Wars is not a property I care about either, so it's a fairly moot point to me.

You may be thinking of "Oswald the Rabbit"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_the_Lucky_Rabbit

Mickey Mouse was created early in 1928 on a train ride from New York to Los Angeles as Walt was returning with his wife from a business meeting at which he lost the copyright of his cartoon, Oswald the Rabbit. Walt spent the train ride thinking up a little mouse in red velvet pants and named him “Mortimer,” but by the time the ride was over, had changed his name to “Mickey.”

Oswald was also a knockoff of many cartoon characters of the time, most notably Felix the Cat.
An intersting discussion on the subject.:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/did-walt-steal-the-idea-of-mickey.78437/
>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^Sarzy:
>> ^Stormsinger:
Disney's biggest selling features, like Mickey Mouse and the Lion King, were clearly stolen from other artist's work.

You're definitely right about The Lion King, but what was Mickey Mouse stolen from? The only character I can think of is Oswald, but that was a Disney creation as well.
(and I think Star Wars should be just fine at Disney -- it's hard to argue that they've done anything but a bang-up job with Marvel's cinematic output, and presumably they'll put the same thought and care into future Star Wars films)

You may be right...there was a toy that some claim Mortimer/Mickey was copied from, but that's not what I was remembering. Sadly, I cannot find any reference to what I thought I remembered, so I'll have to drop Mickey as an example.
However, few of Disney's big films were original stories, he had a penchant for taking public domain IP and using it (The Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Anderson for example)...then, as we all know, buying politicians to make sure that his own copyrights would never expire. Still a form of theft, but not quite as severe.
Bottom line, it's not a company I care to patronize...but Star Wars is not a property I care about either, so it's a fairly moot point to me.

>> ^Sarzy:

>> ^Stormsinger:
Disney's biggest selling features, like Mickey Mouse and the Lion King, were clearly stolen from other artist's work.

You're definitely right about The Lion King, but what was Mickey Mouse stolen from? The only character I can think of is Oswald, but that was a Disney creation as well.
(and I think Star Wars should be just fine at Disney -- it's hard to argue that they've done anything but a bang-up job with Marvel's cinematic output, and presumably they'll put the same thought and care into future Star Wars films)

You may be right...there was a toy that some claim Mortimer/Mickey was copied from, but that's not what I was remembering. Sadly, I cannot find any reference to what I thought I remembered, so I'll have to drop Mickey as an example.

However, few of Disney's big films were original stories, he had a penchant for taking public domain IP and using it (The Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Anderson for example)...then, as we all know, buying politicians to make sure that his own copyrights would never expire. Still a form of theft, but not quite as severe.

Bottom line, it's not a company I care to patronize...but Star Wars is not a property I care about either, so it's a fairly moot point to me.